Another Way
by BlackFeath
Summary: This story takes place during the new 52 'Doomed event'. Diana's thoughts about her relationship with Clark, what it is happening to him and what she may have to do.


I apologize for the many grammar mistakes I have surely made... English is not my first language, and I tried my best to avoid them. Feel free to make me know about any mistakes so that I can improve myself in the future ^^.

About the story... it takes place during the Superman/Wonder Woman annual, but there are not major spoilers about what happened, and it could be placed also after issue 8 or 9 of the same title. It also contains references to some events which took place in the Wonder Woman solo and in Justice League. This is my take on what Diana's thoughts may have been in this situation.

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**ANOTHER WAY**

Was it really the only thing she could do? Had it really come to this, after everything they have been through together? Was to kill him the only thing she could do to save everyone?

Why? Why couldn't have things gone differently?

If only...if only she had been there with him. Maybe...maybe they would have found another way together. Maybe he wouldn't have been infected. Maybe she wouldn't have found herself in this position: to kill him or to watch everything around him die.

Him. The man she loved. She hadn't even told him yet. She was sure she had shown him. How could she have not? But she hadn't told him. Not those words. Not like he had.

She didn't know why. Maybe because she feared that emotion. Maybe because that man was capable to make her feel...feel so vulnerable. Maybe because she knew it to be a very irrational emotion...what with what had happened to her mother... She had gone against everything she believed in after she had fallen in love with Zeus.

But that she voiced it to him or not, that didn't change her position. She was insecure...and she wasn't used to feel that way. She knew that love sometimes wasn't enough for a relationship to last. She had learned it the hard way with Steve.

She had loved him...but maybe...maybe...not how much Steve had loved her, or better, how much he had loved who he believed her to be. That was what she had realized, what had made her leave him. He didn't truly see her. He couldn't really understand her even if he thought he could. And maybe she didn't really understand him too.

She feared it would happen the same with him too. Only this time it would hurt even more...

But no, no.

With Clark...with Kal, it was different. Kal... - she called him Clark since he liked his human name better, but in her mind and in her heart he was always Kal.

She had always felt a strong attraction to him, from the beginning, from their first encounter.

"You are strong" had been his first words to her.

"I know". That was what she had answered, while thinking the same about him. He was strong. Strong just like her. That a first and rare similarity for the both of them, but just one of many.

They hadn't had much contact after that. He didn't talk much. They went on several missions together, sometimes with the other leaguers, sometimes even alone, but he never 'flirted' again with her - she learned after a while that was the right word for their behaviour during their first encounter - she was with Steve, after all.

True was, though, that they may have ignored it for almost five years...but the attraction between them was still there, it hadn't ever gone away, and it was maybe the only thing that had prevented them to start to know each other better, to become friends in those five years. They both knew that 'friends' was not enough, even if unconsciously, so they had continued to watch each other from the distance.

She now knew, though, that whether as friends, whether as something more, she wanted him in her life anyway. Now that she knew him, now that she had learned what a person he was, she couldn't lose him, she just couldn't.

And yet here she was. She had promised him. She had promised him that if there wasn't any other choice, she would have stopped him by every means, and that meant...she would have had to kill him. She was the only one who could do it. The only one strong enough to do it.

Yes...she was strong. Yes, she could do it. But how could she know that was the only possibility left? She didn't want to believe it. She couldn't. How was she supposed to go on after having killed him? After having killed Kal...her Kal... No. She would keep fighting, and she knew he would keep fighting too. He had to. He couldn't give up like this.

Another way. That was what she needed. Another way. To save the world and also him. Another way.

She knew it wasn't that simple. She knew that sometimes to kill was the only possibility. She had been raised as a warrior, and she was someway more realistic than Kal or Bruce in that sense. Life wasn't that simple. Sometimes it required you to do things you wouldn't even want to contemplate, things you knew weren't right. It wasn't white, nor black: it was all gray.

That was why no one was perfect. No one knew without a doubt what was the right thing to do, no one was always capable to do the right thing. Mistakes. Super or not, they couldn't always be avoided. Even the best could make mistakes. That was why no one had to be condemned, everyone deserved a second chance to change, to try to become better.

Everyone did, and yet sometimes it wasn't possible, because to give a person that possibility could mean to condemn many others, others who too deserved a chance to continue to live, who had too made mistakes in their lives, bigger or smaller.

Was it the right thing, then? To sacrifice one to save many?

No. It wasn't right. She knew it. To make such a decision... it wasn't right...

Yet if there really wasn't any other choice...what else one could do?

Life. What a big contradiction.

Sometimes there wasn't even time to think. It was instinct to take over.

She had already sacrificed a person she loved recently. She had killed War, Ares...her brother and mentor. She had killed him for the sake of many. She had not seen any other possibility in that moment. Was there something else she could have done? She didn't know. How could she? She had killed him to prevent the First Born to do it and taking on the mantle of god of war, and in doing it, she had been the one to receive it.

God of War. That was a role she had never wanted. But really...she had never wanted to be a demigoddess too. She had never wanted to be different, and yet she had always been, since her birth. She wasn't like her sisters and they had always reminded her of that. She had continued to be different while in the outside world, even if among many other heroes, and she was also different from the other members of her newly found extended family. She wasn't a mortal, and she wasn't nor she wanted to be like the other gods.

Being different was not simple. Yet she had come to accept that. She had come to accept her powers, she had learnt to be grateful for having them, because thanks to them she could help people also in ways she wouldn't be able to without them. And she had recently come to accept her mantle too. She wanted peace, yet she was a warrior and now also the god of war.

Yes, life was really a big contradiction. But she had learned that from these big contradictions many good things could come too. To accept who you are and to always try to become better was the only right thing to do. Of that she was sure, and she would never stop to.

'Perhaps to be different is a gift'. That was what War had said to her during their first encounter. She had thought it just a curse before. Now she knew it was both. A curse and a gift.

Being different, being alone even while among many people was something she shared with _him_ too.

Loneliness had been what had finally made them give in to their mutual attraction. That kiss, that first kiss. She remembered it so well. After the first moments she had given in, she had let all her passion take over, she had let all her barriers fall, so much that once it was over, she hadn't been able to look at him again, not that night. For the first time she had been herself, all herself for true. Not just the princess, the daughter, the super-heroine, the demigoddess...- those were parts of herself too, of course, but just parts - no...what she had shown Kal that night had been Diana, just Diana.

Someway the same Diana who cried after her sisters had called her Clay again, but only after she was alone. The same Diana who asked her mentor to call her 'Little One' again while keeping him in her arms during his last breath. The same Diana who had felt more alone than ever while crying after discovering her mother had been transformed in a statue, and her sisters into snakes. That part of her that was vulnerable. Vulnerable. She had felt so vulnerable in all those moments and even if in a different way, after that kiss too.

From then on things had changed completely. They decided not to let that kiss pass as nothing, they decided to know each other better.

They had liked what they had learned of each other. They had become closer and closer.

Finally they had fallen in love. She didn't know when exactly, but they had.

And then they had also learned that while they had many things in common, there were also many things they didn't agree on.

To make or not to make the world know about them being together was one of them.

She hadn't understood why Kal wanted to keep everyone from knowing it...not just the world, but their friends and colleagues too. Why? Was he ashamed of her? It was irrational, she knew it, and yet she couldn't help herself. The princess, the amazon, the heroine, knew it was irrational, and yet Diana the young woman couldn't help but have doubts. She wasn't used to it. She didn't like that feeling. She was used to be confident in herself, to know what to do. With him it wasn't always like this. And she knew it was the same for him. He tried to disguise it, but she had seen it.

The world didn't know that part of her, the Diana who was not Wonder Woman, still she didn't lie to anyone, she wasn't used to. It wasn't her who kept herself from them...it was the world who wasn't able to see it. While along the streets of London she was still herself, a jacket her only disguise.

Kal on the other hand... She didn't understand how could he do it. She knew he had been raised as Clark Kent, that he liked to write, that he liked to be considered a normal guy... And yet she couldn't help herself but think that he was lying to everyone and to himself. While down there he wasn't himself. He was not even Clark Kent. He was just a mask. He was true to himself only in what he wrote and in those rare moments in which he dropped the acts. She knew it was to protect those who were near him, to prevent anyone from discovering he was Superman, but...couldn't he just be the true Clark Kent to do that? The Clark, the Kal, she had come to know? While they were together in those rare moments in which the world didn't need them, he wasn't Superman and she wasn't Wonder Woman, hadn't he seen that?

While together if not for they costumes they would not have been recognized by anyone, because the world couldn't recognize in Clark and Diana Superman and Wonder Woman, because they did not seem super, because they were just two young people involved in a young relationship and in love with each other, not the super powered alien and the demigoddess the world was used to see.

Maybe that was why in her mind she preferred to call him Kal. But really... Clark and Kal were just the same person, Clark just happened to be also the name of his mask.

And maybe...maybe...yes...also those near him while Clark Kent sometimes could see glimpses of the true Clark through his act. He was still true to himself when it really mattered. She wanted to share a life with him, and she knew that sometimes compromises were needed in a relationship.

She couldn't change him, and she didn't really want to, because yes...while sometimes infuriating, his wanting to protect everyone even from himself was one of the things that had made her fell in love with him. His acts. Whether they were really necessary or not, he did that because he wanted to protect those close to him. She couldn't really blame him. What with what had happened to Steve because he had been close to her? It was his choice, and she respected it, and she also admired him for his resolve, for his sacrifice.

She wanted him to understand, though, that he didn't have to do the same with her. That he could show every part of himself to her, that she would continue to love him anyway...that he could be vulnerable with her... But maybe...maybe she was being a bit of a hypocrite in wanting this without doing the same.

He had said he loved her, and she hadn't said it back yet even if she was in love with him too... He had kept from her what happened to him after Apollo had attacked him, and also what Doomsday had done to him...and she had kept him away from the First Born.

Protect the other. Be strong for the other without letting the other see you can be vulnerable too. He had been Superman also with her in many situations recently. And yes...she had been Wonder Woman with him too.

They had both done it wrong. They had both had their insecurities, and because of them they hadn't understood that the other could have some too.

Together. They had to fight together. They had to protect each other fighting together, not keeping away the other from danger like they were used to do with everyone else, because they were both strong, and together they were even stronger.

But they had both to learn to be vulnerable with the other too, no matter the fact they weren't used to feel like this with anyone else.

And to think she may not have a chance to change this...

No...she loved him, she was in love with him. She wanted to tell this to him. She didn't want to kill him. She didn't want their story to end in tragedy, everything they had not said still there, between them.

No, please... What could she do? Who could she pray to? She knew the gods, she was one of them...

No. Her mother had taught her to always find the strength in herself and while among her sisters and then in the outside world with the league, she had learned that when your strength alone is not enough, you fight and win together with your allies, your friends.

She would. For herself. For him. She would find another way for them, to have another chance. But if it wasn't enough. If there really wasn't any other choice...then she would do it. For the world, for him, because she knew that he didn't want to be a monster. She would do it, she would make this sacrifice because she had promised him...but not now...not just yet...not while there was still hope.

She wouldn't give up so easily, without even fighting.

She would fight till the end for another way.


End file.
